Celebrating Obscure National Holidays

Let’s see… there’s National Cheese Day on January 20, and of course National Iguana Awareness Day on September 8. So it’s only fitting that good grammar should get a day of its own, too. National Grammar Day has been proclaimed for March 4 by the the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, an organization for those “who crave good, clean English—sentences cast well and punctuated correctly.” The group’s site sums it up this way: “It’s about clarity.” Martha and Grant are down with that. So here’s to National Grammar Day and also to the wise cautionary note sounded by Baltimore Sun copy editor John McIntyre about the danger of getting too curmudegonly about it all. This is part of a complete episode.

Space Cadet (episode #1514) 12/24/2018: We have books for language-lovers and recommendations for history buffs. • How did the word boondoggle come to denote a wasteful project? The answer involves... [more]